OPC making errors when conducting Assessments! Be Careful

Mr Rottweiler · 27 Nov 2019

cancatsdance said:
I failed MMI and i actually guessed which question i messed up on, and they confirmed it by phone. anyway long story short im now a year later and having to do them all again with OPC and not just the one i failed as so many people say

I'm in a similar boat however I've always been under the impression that I'd retake the entire MMI portion and not the question I failed to answer adequately.

In regards to the phrasing of the emergency question I think mine *may* have said taken control of emergency/pressurised situation (my memory is a bit fuzzy on this) however I just treated it as 'a time I've dealt with an emergency situation' and still passed this question. Utlimately in my opinion the answer will remain the same i.e. dealing with an unexpected situation.

On a similar note two questions that have come up repeatedly on this forum are "Describe a time you've worked alone for long periods" and "Describe a time you've undertaken a role simiilar to that of a train driver" and from what I believe both of these questions are asking the same thing.

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cancatsdance · 27 Nov 2019

Mr Rottweiler said:
I'm in a similar boat however I've always been under the impression that I'd retake the entire MMI portion and not the question I failed to answer adequately.

I had to retake everything not just MMI

WD40 · 27 Nov 2019

I totally agree with the original post and I'm not sure where the confusion is tbh.
Lead and control are key words which are used for a reason when setting out the question so must be included when asking the question, it's not for the candidate to decipher what the assessors asking. Asking someone how you would "deal" with an emergency might be looking for a candidates emotional response etc . There's a question that is worded as follows " Give an example of when you have had to persevere whilst learning" what if the word learning was left out??? There's plenty of things people have had to persevere through and they don't all involve learning. The questions should be asked in there entirety I agreed 100%

Val3ntine · 27 Nov 2019

WD40 said:
I totally agree with the original post and I'm not sure where the confusion is tbh.
Lead and control are key words which are used for a reason when setting out the question so must be included when asking the question, it's not for the candidate to decipher what the assessors asking. Asking someone how you would "deal" with an emergency might be looking for a candidates emotional response etc . There's a question that is worded as follows " Give an example of when you have had to persevere whilst learning" what if the word learning was left out??? There's plenty of things people have had to persevere through and they don't all involve learning. The questions should be asked in there entirety I agreed 100%

But the question wasn’t asked how you would deal with an emergency it would
been to give an example of when you dealt with an emergency. The MMI is about matching the skills as close to and similar as a train driver as possible so any example given should have been that which of course involves taking control of a situation. Even if the example given was witnessing a hit and run at the side of the road and there just so happened to be 5 doctors around who attended to the casualty so you think you wouldn’t be in control of that situation, but just by calling the ambulance giving the operator details relayed by the doctors, location, details of hit and run car to pass on to the police etc etc, this would be a major form of you taking control and you really emphasise on everything you did that closely matches the attributes of a good train driver. Good, clear communication is definitely something they’d be looking for in a question like this yet that’s not worded neither. There’ll be some other key words and actions they’ll want and expect from the questions not just what they specifically ask for.

Val3ntine · 27 Nov 2019

“Give an example of where you had to persevere whilst learning”

“Name a time you’ve been on a course or training in a classroom environment for 2 weeks or more”

Both questions can be worded either way and in other formats, but the second does not mention persevere? So if asked the second way do you not give an example where you’ve had to persevere to achieve what you wanted?

John Bishop · 27 Nov 2019

WD40 said:
I totally agree with the original post and I'm not sure where the confusion is tbh.
Lead and control are key words which are used for a reason when setting out the question so must be included when asking the question, it's not for the candidate to decipher what the assessors asking. Asking someone how you would "deal" with an emergency might be looking for a candidates emotional response etc . There's a question that is worded as follows " Give an example of when you have had to persevere whilst learning" what if the word learning was left out??? There's plenty of things people have had to persevere through and they don't all involve learning. The questions should be asked in there entirety I agreed 100%

My bold above. Yes it is for the candidate to find out what the assessor is asking, the same way a written question is asking for a specific thing.

What is the question asking me?
Or
What is the question the assessor is asking me, what information do they want from me, and how does that relate to the role of train driver.

Twotwo · 27 Nov 2019

Excatly.

When I was preparing for my MMI these are my notes I had written for this question when I was trying to break down the question. Again no mention of ' taking control or taking the lead' . But thankfully my answer must have incorporated some parts of it for me to pass.

"Emergency question - are you calm under pressure? Are you able to think clearly? Are you able to keep yourself safe? Are you able to do as you are trained to do? Remember your safety is important, if you are not safe how can you keep anyone else safe. So you don’t want to give an example of doing something where you potentially could have been hurt by playing an hero for example. Also don’t talk about what others did, they want to know what you did!"

Like I posted earlier, would you have changed your answer if the interviewer had incorporated the extra two words?

I don't no what example you've given but I think you probably mentioned about what others did? Because I know one person who failed this way.

Spincity · 27 Nov 2019

WD40 said:
I totally agree with the original post and I'm not sure where the confusion is tbh.
Lead and control are key words which are used for a reason when setting out the question so must be included when asking the question, it's not for the candidate to decipher what the assessors asking. Asking someone how you would "deal" with an emergency might be looking for a candidates emotional response etc . There's a question that is worded as follows " Give an example of when you have had to persevere whilst learning" what if the word learning was left out??? There's plenty of things people have had to persevere through and they don't all involve learning. The questions should be asked in there entirety I agreed 100%

sorry been a watcher on the forum but had to join as this post/replies are driving me mad.

for the mmi you get a piece of paper with 6 questions on. You read the question, you answer it based on the question. Therefore even if the assessor just said for answer 4, ( not even giving the question details) your answer was this, surely you are going to go explain your answer and follow up question.

some people just need to except that they didn’t perform and reflect/move on.

Through out my assessment it was repeated constantly “have you got any questions”. Your going for a responsible job where you are managing people’s safety and therefore you should be proactive in making sure you are certain what is being asked/required and not wait til later.

WD40 · 27 Nov 2019

I thought it might be an idea to just ask someone involved in the assessment process . My partners brother in law works for Arriva Rail who often carry out their assessments in house and he says..
" Hi, sorry i took a while, wanted an ofdicial answer for you, and that is this. pyschometric tests have specific parameters otherwise the outcome would be unreliable, from the time allowed for each test, the time you have had the practice material for, there is a reason behind everything which is why assessors must not give out too much information ie how questions are scored, or why we don't tell candidates how long they have when carrying out the group bourdon test. The MMI questions should be read as is on the pre interview form, period. Every candidate must sit the EXACT SAME test so if questions are phrased differently or for instance one candidate is given extra time to complete a portion of the tests the effectiveness of these tests can't be guaged. If assessors alter how a question is asked then it allows for human error/miscommunication. Nothing should be ambiguous! Basically what I'm saying is these are PYSCHOMETRIC tests not a managers interview. All assessors know this, what company was it btw?? Hope this helps "

NealFitz · 27 Nov 2019

RickyWells said:
Hi

funny you should post this. This exact same thing happened to me recently. My MMI interview was conducted during lunch time as only 3 computers were available. My interview lasted around 25min which is very short according to the research I did into the process. I went on to pass the tests and thought my interview went really well. Hence why it was so short. For 5 days I thought I’d passed only to be told I failed the interview. I complained to Northern but there’s not a lot they can do other than get feedback which I also requested. I was naturally devastated and something didn’t feel right about it. My issue was the interview being so short and that I wasn’t given the same opportunity as everyone else but also that I genuinely couldn’t understand what went wrong. The feedback I received after 4weeks was that I didn’t "gel up to the criteria" on the very last question! They couldn’t give the specifics other than that I should think about the answer I gave! I too wanted to take this further but there is no process in place to do this.

That is a very strange length of time. How can the interview be so short? When I did my MMI I was in nearly 2.5 hours

MostlyHarmless · 27 Nov 2019

NealFitz said:
That is a very strange length of time. How can the interview be so short? When I did my MMI I was in nearly 2.5 hours

I'd say 2.5 hours was also a strange length of time. Mine was an hour!

NealFitz · 27 Nov 2019

At the time I thought that was pretty decent. Bearing in mind I did my MMI back in 2016 although from reading the posts here everyone seemed to be in for an hour anyway. The interview was flowing really well and next thing I was like been in here a long time

OneLowban · 27 Nov 2019

Personally I don’t believe the exact words are too relevant, depending on the question, reason being is I was asked these in my MMI and passed:

A time you were relied upon to do a task and do it well in the face of difficultly.

A Time you had to be careful not to make a mistake.

A Time you followed rules and procedures.

A time you Dealt with a pressurised and emergency situation.

A Time you had to persevere with something.

A Role you think is similar to a train driver role.

I have listed all of what I was asked incase anyone else had similar. However the three I have put in bold are important here as you can see the first one is:

- A time you Dealt (not took control, even though my answer was me being in control of the whole situation as I was a bus controller) with a pressurised and emergency situation.

Second one is:

- A Time you had to persevere with something. (not whilst learning, even though my answer was about me learning to drive a bus)

Third one was different as it could be asked through personal experience or hypothetically, as mine was:

- A Role you think is similar to a train driver role. (My answer was a pilot, I have never been a pilot)

NealFitz · 27 Nov 2019

I cannot remember how the emergency question was worded exactly but remember answering it in such a way that I was in control of it. I worked for the railways before I became a driver so I used an emergency situation from being station staff.
In saying that someone mentioned about working alone for long periods of time and a role similar to a train driver being the same thing. It depends how you want to interpret it. Does alone mean without a co worker but still surrounded by people? If I open and close the train station on a Sunday but run the station all day, that is working alone? I say it is. For the time you carried out a role similar to a train driver, I said I regularly did a common long car journey at weekends. Following signs, obeying speeds, traffic lights, rules of the roads, same journey every weekend, so would be similar to driving same route as a train driver.

Applepie356 · 7 Aug 2020

Would be interesting to see pass rates for in house with ToC’s vs OPC.

For ToC’s, especially when DMI is done before MMI it’s generally in their best interest to pass you.

ComUtoR · 7 Aug 2020

Applepie356 said:
For ToC’s, especially when DMI is done before MMI it’s generally in their best interest to pass you.

Why do you say that ?

DunfordBridge · 9 Nov 2020

Purple77 said:
The question is " Give an example of when you have taken the lead or control in an emergency/pressurised situation" she asked " Give an example of when you had to deal with an emergency/pressurised situation"

Probably going back a long time now, and possibly too far back for you to have a clear recollection, but having not mentioned taking the lead when the question was first asked, did the interviewer not ask how you took the lead in subsequent probing questions under the same topic? In my experience, the interviewer will interrupt you often with related questions, just to put you on the spot.

Twotwo said:
Excatly.

When I was preparing for my MMI these are my notes I had written for this question when I was trying to break down the question. Again no mention of ' taking control or taking the lead' . But thankfully my answer must have incorporated some parts of it for me to pass.

"Emergency question - are you calm under pressure? Are you able to think clearly? Are you able to keep yourself safe? Are you able to do as you are trained to do? Remember your safety is important, if you are not safe how can you keep anyone else safe. So you don’t want to give an example of doing something where you potentially could have been hurt by playing an hero for example. Also don’t talk about what others did, they want to know what you did!"

Like I posted earlier, would you have changed your answer if the interviewer had incorporated the extra two words?

I don't no what example you've given but I think you probably mentioned about what others did? Because I know one person who failed this way.

I agree with most of what you are saying on this thread, but going back to the last sentence in your post above, say in the situation of where you are working in a team, is it not useful to mention the involvement of other people in the team, just to clarify what your role was, say if you were helping them or working independently?

When I did my CBI back in 2013, I met someone who mentioned the example of working as part of a lifeboat team for the emergency situation question. I do not know the ins and outs however. Not sure now if he passed on that question but he was adamant it was an emergency.

Stigy · 10 Nov 2020

DunfordBridge said:
Probably going back a long time now, and possibly too far back for you to have a clear recollection, but having not mentioned taking the lead when the question was first asked, did the interviewer not ask how you took the lead in subsequent probing questions under the same topic? In my experience, the interviewer will interrupt you often with related questions, just to put you on the spot.

I agree with most of what you are saying on this thread, but going back to the last sentence in your post above, say in the situation of where you are working in a team, is it not useful to mention the involvement of other people in the team, just to clarify what your role was, say if you were helping them or working independently?

When I did my CBI back in 2013, I met someone who mentioned the example of working as part of a lifeboat team for the emergency situation question. I do not know the ins and outs however. Not sure now if he passed on that question but he was adamant it was an emergency.

An example such as the Lifeboat crew example was an ideal scenario. I think you’re right in that question particularly that sometimes you need to explain others’ part in a situation. In general though, it’s about what you did in all questions and anything to do with other people, as well as mentioning what you would normally do in a situation, should be avoided.

DunfordBridge · 10 Nov 2020

Stigy said:
An example such as the Lifeboat crew example was an ideal scenario. I think you’re right in that question particularly that sometimes you need to explain others’ part in a situation. In general though, it’s about what you did in all questions and anything to do with other people, as well as mentioning what you would normally do in a situation, should be avoided.

Thanks Stigy. I shall be sure to take your words of wisdom on board.

Inthe4foot · 10 Nov 2020

Very entertaining post this one. I failed my first MMI, did a bit more research and practiced more for the 2nd one - I passed. Based my answers around NTS a bit more but was exactly the same questions read in the same way.

There is a lot of positive, informative and correct answers on this post but do people really believe there’s a big conspiracy theory? Or believe that TOCs, FOCs OPC who ever fail\pass people for no reason!

The companies HR departments have to be glass houses now days. Now I’m not saying a driver manager won’t help his son/daughter with advice and give them a heads up but they have to go into the tests and pass to the same standard same as anyone else.

HLE · 10 Nov 2020

The OPC tests/MMI are fair enough, certainly when I did them it was clear we were all asked the same questions and probed like mad. All for the right reasons.

As for the DMI, that's totally TOC dependant and a bit of a lottery. Competency based these days round these parts but people's experiences vary. I've heard a few people say the DM was helpful with the questions etc and it was quite a laid back affair, yet others say it was straight into the questions, no 'to and fro', the usual 'any questions' at the end and then out the door to wait for the failure email the next day. Its my theory that after the assesments/MMI they know who they want and who they don't, and from recent intakes its usually coppers that make up the externals. Anyone else is either internal or just a one off. That's the bit that's unfair in my book, it certainly isn't whiter than white over this way.

Fat Gaz · 10 Nov 2020

HLE said:
... and from recent intakes its usually coppers that make up the externals.

And fire fighters

185 · 11 Nov 2020

HLE said
... and from recent intakes its usually coppers that make up the externals.

Fat Gaz said:
And fire fighters

Whilst person criteria from these groups of applicants is usually met, one major error HR make by hiring them is that they are mostly in receipt of a pension thus trying to persuade them to do overtime, rest day work or voluntary Sundays is near impossible; quite understandable as there's no point - all that extra days wage becomes tax.

baz962 · 11 Nov 2020

Oh dear. I don't know if anyone on this thread is talking about a specific toc or not. However at mine , some externals are ex coppers and a couple of ex force's. No ex firefighters that I know of. On some course's there were no ex firefighters or police , including mine. In fact I think we have more ex taxi and bus driver's than anything else. And as for the tax nonsense , if you earn 50 , 60 , 70 etc you still only pay 40% tax . You never pay all the money in tax. The tax only changes again at 150k and then it's 45% , so you keep 55% . Although after 100k you start to lose the tax free allowance , which is completely gone by 125k. As an aside , three of the biggest worker's of overtime at my place were ex police.

Fat Gaz · 11 Nov 2020

185 said:
Whilst person criteria from these groups of applicants is usually met, one major error HR make by hiring them is that they are mostly in receipt of a pension thus trying to persuade them to do overtime, rest day work or voluntary Sundays is near impossible; quite understandable as there's no point - all that extra days wage becomes tax.

Or maybe on the other hand, the divorce rate in police and fire is high so that lovely pension you mention or that lovely 5 bed detached house has been given up as part of the divorce financial settlement and the individual is working to 70 with as much OT as they can lay their hands on to get their life back as it were.

Or so I hear.

Apparently.

OPC making errors when conducting Assessments! Be Careful

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